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Group News Spring 2006

CO-OP CLIMATE CAMPAIGN During 2006 the Co-operative Bank will be working in partnership with Friends of the Earth to campaign on climate change issues.

ONYX PROTESTSheffield's Ponds Forge hosted the National Recycling Awards on Tuesday 25th October. Whilst we support the event, we joined forces with Sheffield Green Party to protest against Onyx's plans for incineration instead of recycling. A press release was published in the Sheffield Star.

STALLSA festival took place on 13th August in Osgathorpe park called Islam and the Environment. Its aim was to raise awareness in the local community about environmental issues, taking an Islamic perspective as many of the local residents are Muslim. Although we couldn't attend the event we sent some membership and climate change leaflets.

CLIMATE CHANGE STALLSheffield Friends of the Earth ran a stall on the Moor on Saturday 5th November. We handed out 160 free energy saving light bulbs as part of our campaign to highlight climate change.

FUTURE STALLSDo you know of any events Sheffield Friends of the Earth could attend during 2006. If so please contact Shaun

LEAFLET DISPENSERSSheffield Friends of the Earth recently purchased a number of professional leaflet dispensers to make our stalls look better and to stop the leaflets blowing away in the wind. As the dispensers are stacked, they now provided more table space for petitions and light bulbs.

ACCESS TO MEETINGSOur regular meetings are held upstairs at the Red Deer pub which creates problems with access as a steep flight of stairs must be climbed. To provide a partial solution to this problem, we are trying to hold four meetings (once a quarter) at Recycling Matters on Spital Hill. We are aiming for the first meeting to start in February so please contact Steve for the latest information.

ETHICAL BANK ACCOUNTSheffield Friends of the Earth are in the process of creating a new bank account with the Co-operative Bank due to their ethical policies. We hope the account will be operational by early 2006.

We will still keep the existing Royal Bank of Scotland accounts as we have a number of standing orders and direct debits paid into them. If you are one of these people and you would like to move it to our new co-op account then please let us know.

ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTERPaper copies of our newsletter take a considerable amount of time to photocopy and post, thus reducing time spent on campaigning. The paper newsletters also have an environmental and financial cost.

We appreciate that some people don’t have computers or internet access, so we will still keep producing a paper version, but if possible we would like to send out an electronic version to as many members as possible.

We would like to know how many people would prefer to receive the Sheffield Friends of the Earth newsletter by email. Your comments on the following questions would be useful too.

Would you like the newsletter emailed to you or should we email a link to the web site where it can be downloaded?

The membership renewal process will become difficult by email. To simplify the process, do you think members should renew when the first newsletter of the new year is sent out? We could consider giving existing members who have just renewed a free year to compensate for the change.

Please send any comments to Shaun

RECENT EVENTS

Attended a Climate Change demo in London

Held a No M1 Widening Stall.

Visited the Highways Agency to discuss the M1 widening issue.

A group member was featured in the Guardian talking about M1 widening.

Handed out more energy saving light bulbs at a stall on the Moor.

Attended the annual local groups’ conference.

Put climate change questions to the council via the Green Party councilor.

Invited to several transport awards.

Purchase new leaflet dispensers and leaflets.

Protest against Onyx at the Recycling Awards.

Contacted companies about the range of energy efficient light bulbs on sale.

Popular Posts

Global Warming is resulting in more extreme weather, rising sea levels and diminishing Arctic sea ice. This is placing people and communities at risk and it’s effects are already being felt around the world.

In May 2019 the UK Parliament declared a Climate Emergency, and over half of UK local authorities including Sheffield, Bansley, Rotherham and Doncaster councils have done likewise. By Autumn 2019 the Mayor of Sheffield City Region, Dan Jarvis MP has not declared a Climate Emergency to bring the region's local authorities together to produce a Climate Action Plan. Sheffield City Region includes the local authorities of Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield. For more information about Dan, click here.

Sheffield Friends of the Earth launched a petition calling on Dan Jarvis to declare a Climate Emergency. We had a good response rate, but to publicise the petition we made a giant ambulance which was driven to the climate emergency on the Town Hall steps by a cardboard vers…

Clean Air Demo
Sheffield City Council's Clean Air Consultation was launched on 1 July and there was an interview and photo in the Sheffield Star. See the article here.

Picture Credit: Richard Souter

Clean Air Zone Consultation
Individuals can respond and there is also potential for a Sheffield Friends of the Earth local group response as an organisation. The issues for FoE were discussed and Richard is co-ordinating a group response. There will be a meeting to finalise a group response at 7pm on 12 August in the Red Deer.